President Donald Trump told a crowd in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday that Iran’s leadership has collapsed so completely that the United States has no one left to negotiate with, dismissing an attack from a top Iranian official hours earlier.
The exchange began when Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, posted a message on X attacking Trump directly. “After one failure after another, the worst president in American history just keeps talking — and talking — and now his words have even outrun his own fantasies,” Rezaei wrote. “You can win every day in your own imagination. But reality is shaped by Iran — by its people, its soldiers, and its missiles.”
Trump answered at his Mobile rally the same day, describing a regime that has burned through its own leadership ranks with no one willing to take the top job.
“They lost one set of leaders. Then they lost another set of leaders. Then they lost half of a third set, and they had a little runoff for who wants to be president and there were no participants. Everyone said, ‘I don’t, I don’t want to be,'” Trump said.
He continued, framing the leadership gap as a direct obstacle to any resolution. “And it’s part of our problem. I don’t know who the hell to deal with. There’s nobody to deal with. Nobody wants to be president, I’d say ‘Who do I speak to in Iran?’ They’re not nobody around. Knock, knock. Nobody home,” Trump added.
The jab lands on a real structural issue. Iran does have a sitting president, but actual authority in the country runs through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, not the presidency. Reports indicate the regime’s power structure has been in disarray, with no clear figure able to make binding decisions on Iran’s behalf.
Trump predicted the conflict with Iran is nearing its conclusion regardless of who holds nominal power in Tehran. “That war is going to be over soon. One way or the other,” he said. “It’s going to end very soon and probably right after the midterms.”
The Rezaei post followed an open letter released by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on September 30, addressed to the American public, urging voters to reject Trump. The letter pointed to the “No Kings” protests as evidence of domestic opposition to the president and called for more demonstrations.
Trump is not on any ballot, and his authority as commander-in-chief does not hinge on midterm results, a fact the letter did not appear to account for.
